In the course of the last few weeks we lifted up the curtains to let you in closer to the dynamic world of programmatic media buying. We already covered some of the most popular types of programmatic advertising mediums, like the rising Programmatic Video for example or the curious case of Programmatic TV (both set to pose serious challenge to the traditional advertising). It only makes sense now that we turn the focus to the “brightest star”. Let’s talk about Mobile Programmatic Advertising.

First up - mobile advertising is more than its name suggests. As opposed to the general association the name invokes, this ad medium includes not only smartphones but tablets as well. Thanks to the rapid increase of mobile users in the last few years, it has grown to become an integral player of the advertising mix. Recent research eMarketer shows that the role of mobile advertising is only going to get more important. According to this study mobile ad spending is set to increase by 50% in 2015, reaching $28.72 billion in the US alone. If this is not convincing enough then you must know that the study also predicts that by 2019 mobile ad spending will account for 72.2% of the total digital ad spend.

Mobile ads are big and with programmatic buying included in their structure they’re only set to rise further. Mobile programmatic advertising is transforming both the buy and the sell side, and is one of the fastest growing areas in the digital advertising world. It follows the same pattern of its display bigger brother - through the automated buying systems marketers can place the right message at the right time to the right person, but in a mobile format. In other words, just like in display programmatic advertising, mobile allows refined targeting capabilities and real-time engagement.

Mobile programmatic includes two types of advertising channels: mobile apps and mobile web. Form the two mobile app is actually the stronger one. According to recent study by Flurry 90 percent of today’s mobile activity is on mobile apps, which leaves little window of opportunity for the mobile web ads. In the spirit of the modern-day digital advertising - where there are more people there is more data. No surprise then that mobile app provides marketers with variety of information. Not only app-install and app-open information but also a wide range of data on user activities after the app was downloaded - for example, in-app purchases, uploading of a credit card, or other app-usage metrics.

To put the benefits in more concrete terms: mobile programmatic strengthens the consumer insight with a wide range of data. It allows advertisers to understand better their consumers behaviour by providing them with more refined geo-location data, more insightful information on the user’s habits (preferred restaurants and locations they’ve traveled to), social media activities, etc.

Programmatic mobile advertising strengthens the marketing mix and enables marketers to be a step closer to completing the puzzle of the consumer path to purchase. Its strategic merits are definitely no longer overlooked and leading businesses are already focusing large portion of its budgets to mobile programmatic. And we have the numbers to back us up once again. According to eMarketer, mobile programmatic ad spend in the U.S. will be close to $8.4 billion this year, surpassing online advertising spend for the first time. Our world is not only digital, it is exceptionally mobile as well.